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C.H. Sommers

How to get more women (and men) to call themselves feminists

How would the women’s movement change if freedom feminism were its guiding philosophy?

First, gender gaps in wages, political leadership, and the professions would not automatically be taken as proof of discrimination. Freedom feminists allow that there could be innocent explanations for disparities. Instead, its focus would be on genuine injustice.

Second, the women’s lobby would muster the courage to address a root cause of poverty in America: missing fathers. Freedom feminists may well join their more progressive sisters in supporting initiatives to assist poverty-stricken single mothers; but the primary focus would be on combatting male-averse educational and social policies that have helped create a dysfunctional culture of fatherlessness.

Third, the geographic focus would shift from the United States to the developing world. Throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, there are modern-day Elizabeth Cady Stantons and Frances Willards fighting valiantly to improve the lives of women. They are asking for our help. History suggests that a coalition of conservative and progressive women could be powerful force for change. In welcoming women from across the ideological spectrum, freedom feminism would build that formidable coalition.

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Why would we want that? Are there too many people calling themselves “masculinists?” What we really need is to rid ourselves from the idea that we are not free, that we are victims, and that we need some movement of pseudo-intellectuals to liberate us. The truth is what makes us free, and it is independent of all things human.

Did you guys actually read the article? It’s a very well written one that rejects the radical feminism you seem to think it is supporting.

What it is basically calling for is a rejection of the status-quo abortion uber alles, fight the patriarchy rarrrr ultra-feminazi’s and replacing it with one that is focused on *real* injustices across the world and the promotion of liberty and responsibility, the rebuilding of the family and the end of the gender wars.

My wife was an data communications engineer and actually worked on some of the very first Ethernet hardware which eventually lead to the networking we have in a lot of homes today. She current owns and runs her own business and she is a medal winning fencer. She also has a CCW permit and is fairly conservative. She absolutely despises feminism and especially radical feminism. She thinks it has ruin women by forcing them into roles few ever sought and just turned them into another working slave. She hates the view from many so called feminist that she is not a “real” woman because she has not had an abortion, lesbian sex and has children.

Did you guys actually read the article? It’s a very well written one that rejects the radical feminism you seem to think it is supporting.

What it is basically calling for is a rejection of the status-quo abortion uber alles, fight the patriarchy rarrrr ultra-feminazi’s and replacing it with one that is focused on *real* injustices across the world and the promotion of liberty and responsibility, the rebuilding of the family and the end of the gender wars.

Did you guys actually read the article? It’s a very well written one that rejects the radical feminism you seem to think it is supporting.

What it is basically calling for is a rejection of the status-quo abortion uber alles, fight the patriarchy rarrrr ultra-feminazi’s and replacing it with one that is focused on *real* injustices across the world and the promotion of liberty and responsibility, the rebuilding of the family and the end of the gender wars.

Edunai on June 27, 2013 at 1:01 AM

Exactly, Christina Hoff Summers is one of those rare feminists who actually care about women AND men and how they work together, rather than pitting them against each other populist style.

My wife was an data communications engineer and actually worked on some of the very first Ethernet hardware which eventually lead to the networking we have in a lot of homes today. She current owns and runs her own business and she is a medal winning fencer. She also has a CCW permit and is fairly conservative. She absolutely despises feminism and especially radical feminism. She thinks it has ruin women by forcing them into roles few ever sought and just turned them into another working slave. She hates the view from many so called feminist that she is not a “real” woman because she has not had an abortion, lesbian sex and has children.

Dr. Frank Enstine on June 27, 2013 at 8:40 AM

It irritates me to forget the exact citation, but I remember reading a book a long time ago by a leftist feminist from a working class background making EXACTLY that complaint. She objected that the movement was all middle-class “Feminine Mystique” in its emphasis, and that a lot of working-class women didn’t mind not having to work a job and/or staying at home.

ebrown2 on June 27, 2013 at 9:23 AM
.
While I agree 60’s feminism is far more anti-male than Seneca Falls,
EC Stanton and the rest did say in the “Declaration of Sentiments” – He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
And other claptrapp
.
The inherent problem with any group grievance is that it is easier to tear down the “oppressors” than it is to build up the group, and it is easier to demonize the benevolent US white male than it is to stand up to groups that will kill you for your words.

While I agree 60′s feminism is far more anti-male than Seneca Falls,
EC Stanton and the rest did say in the “Declaration of Sentiments” – He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
And other claptrapp
.
The inherent problem with any group grievance is that it is easier to tear down the “oppressors” than it is to build up the group, and it is easier to demonize the benevolent US white male than it is to stand up to groups that will kill you for your words.

LincolntheHun on June 27, 2013 at 9:35 AM

Folks like the Grimke sisters were standing up, at great personal cost & the law at that time definitely cast women as second-class individuals without full citizenship rights.